Police have detained a man allegedly involved in the murder of Mexican journalist Anabel Flores Salazar whose murder authorities said was motivated by her work as a journalist.
Attorney General of the State of Veracruz, Luis Ángel Bravo Contreras, made the announcement at a press conference and said the man initially was detained with a car that had been reported stolen, according to Tiempo de Veracruz.
In a press release, the Attorney General’s office said “that the journalist was deprived of liberty and life because of publications that affected the interests of a criminal group to which the captured belongs.”
After investigations, a new arrest warrant was obtained, according to the statement.
The person detained was identified only with the initials G.P.V.
Tiempo de Veracruz reported that Bravo Contreras also said there are three other people who could also be arrested in the case.
Flores’ body was found in the state of Puebla on Feb. 9 after being kidnapped by armed men a day earlier from her home in Veracruz. She covered crime for newspaper El Sol de Orizaba and also worked for El Mundo de Orizaba and El Buen Tono.
On Feb. 13, Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte published Tweets announcing the transfer of Josele Márquez, also known as “El Chichi,” to federal prison and linking him to the masterminding of Flores Salazar’s murder. Márquez is suspected of being the head of Los Zetas criminal organization in Veracruz, according to Animal Político.
Flores is one of five journalists killed in Mexico so far this year. The latest death was that of Francisco Pacheco Beltrán in Guerrero on April 25.
This is the second development in the case of murdered journalist to happen in Mexico in the past week. Federal Police arrested a suspect in the Moisés Dagdug Lutzow murder on April 30. Dagdug was stabbed to death on Feb. 20 in Villahermosa, Tabasco.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
